Long before there was Caitlin Clark, there was Lindy La Rocque.
The young basketball guard from Durango High was just a kid when she first started putting up the longballs. And she didn’t seem to care where she was on the court at the moment of launch because they always seemed to go in.
As the 2008 grad was getting her start, so were women’s local women’s sports. Few college or professional rosters at the time featured players from Nevada.
But that was about to change. It was a time when the women of Southern Nevada were just getting things kicked off.
Just as La Rocque would go on to become a standout player at Stanford before taking over as the coach of the UNLV Lady Rebels, athletes throughout the valley were progressing. And excelling.
Today the history books of nearly every sport are loaded with local players.
But which local superstar is the best out of each high school? More specifically, which area athletes have reached the highest level of their sports? For some schools, that might be limited to high school success. But for most, it means college, Olympic or professional dominance, and the kinds of awards, accolades and numbers that none of their peers have matched. In fact, some might be the most successful and recognizable in the history of their sports.
Note: Review-Journal sports editor Bill Bradley, assistant sports editor Diamond Leung, reporters Adam Hill and Alex Wright, and former preps reporter Damon Seiters contributed to the selections in this story.
Arbor View: Peyton Prussin
The 2019 Aggies grad found her niche early in life, becoming a 10-time high school All-American and the first female wrestler in Nevada history to qualify for the boys’ 4A state tournament. After dominating on her way to three national NAIA championships in the 109-116-pound division for Life College in Georgia, she joined WWE. She performs on the WWE NXT brand under the ring name Kendal Grey and has captured the NXT Women’s Championship.
Basic: Renee Brown
The 1974 Wolves grad was heavily recruited out of high school and wound up at UNLV. She lettered twice as a Lady Rebel, with her strong play away from the ball helping to anchor a defensive-minded team that made the NIT in 1976. But she was only getting started, as she next went into high school and collegiate coaching. She then served as an assistant coach at Stanford for the Cardinal’s 1990 and 1992 national championships, was an assistant on the 1996 Olympic gold medal-winning team, and chaired the selection committee that produced five consecutive Olympic gold medal-winning rosters. She topped that with a 20-year run as a WNBA executive, joining the league in 1996 as a founding executive and becoming senior vice president and chief of basketball operations and player relations from 2005-16.
Bishop Gorman: Inbee Park
The native of Seoul, South Korea, moved to Nevada at the age of 12 and soon became a household name in the world of golf. She won two individual state titles for the Gaels before graduating in 2006. Park passed on offers from Harvard and Yale to join the LPGA Tour in 2007, becoming the youngest winner of the U.S. Women’s Open a year later at age 19. The world No. 1 ranking and a gold medal at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games followed. Park retired in 2022 with seven major championship wins to her credit.
Bonanza: Sheila Tarr-Smith
The 1982 Bengals grad was dominant in high school track and basketball before winning the 1984 NCAA heptathlon championship while competing for UNLV in 1984. She died of a rare neurological disorder in 1998 and is fondly remembered as a fiercely competitive Rebel each time athletes walk onto UNLV’s Sheila Tarr-Smith Field.
Canyon Springs: Cherise Beynon
She could have played center, but this 5-foot-10 2014 Pioneers grad was the team’s point guard, helping Canyon Springs go 73-19 in her tenure. She moved on to the University of New Mexico, where she earned three consecutive All-Mountain West first-team selections. After two seasons of professional international play, she took over as director of basketball operations for Stony Brook University and Tulane, where she works as the executive secretary for the Tulane Center for Sport.
Centennial: Tasha Schwikert Moser
This 2003 grad was barely a high schooler when she helped the U.S. gymnastics team win bronze at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. But Schwikert wasn’t done there, as she went on to win consecutive U.S. senior national all-around titles in 2001 and 2002. She also was the team captain for the U.S. women’s team that brought home the first World Championship team gold medal for the United States in 2003. She followed by competing for UCLA, where she won multiple NCAA individual all-around national titles. She subsequently worked as a gymnastics color commentator before becoming an attorney and an associate athletic director at Rice University.
Chaparral: Chynna Hartmann
Though there are no overly famous female Cowboys athletes, this 2011 grad gained notoriety by becoming a kicker for the boys varsity football team. Her longest field goal of 2010 was from 40 yards, and her shining moment was the extra point she put through the uprights in overtime to help Chaparral defeat Eldorado 28-27 in the traditional Cleat Game that season. The moment distracted attention from her success as the goalie for the girls soccer team — she went on to be on Ohio State’s roster — but it was a moment still celebrated at Chaparral.
Cheyenne: Jessica Zarndt
The 1999 grad joined the cross-country team to stay in shape for basketball season, but soon learned that distance running was her greatest athletic talent. She lettered all four years, helping the Desert Shields win two state championships in cross-country and one in track. Her four years of all-state, all-conference, and all-zone honors led her to UNLV, where she became the NCAA Woman of the Year for the state of Nevada and a collegiate 10,000-meter conference champion. Zarndt still wasn’t done with sports, as she earned her medical degree and has served as team physician for both the Las Vegas Raiders and Aces.
Cimarron-Memorial: Amy Purdy
After suffering bacterial meningitis that led to a kidney transplant and a double leg amputation below the knees, this 1998 Spartans grad took up para snowboarding and won bronze at the 2014 Sochi Paralympic Games. After retiring from the sport, she finished as the runner-up on Season 18 of “Dancing with the Stars,” wrote a best-selling memoir and co-founded Adaptive Action Sports to help individuals train in action sports.
Clark: Uhunoma Osazuwa
The 2006 Chargers grad was a standout basketball and volleyball player, but she was unstoppable in track and field. She developed that talent to represent Nigeria at the 2012 London Olympics and the 2016 Rio Olympics, finishing 29th in the heptathlon. She still holds the Nigerian outdoor national record for the women’s heptathlon with her score of 6,153 points at the 2016 African Athletics Championships.
Coronado: Taylor Flint
Coronado has long been a soccer powerhouse in Southern Nevada, and this 2016 grad helped solidify that label. She scored 84 goals as a Cougar, with 56 of them coming in her senior year. Flint led Coronado to a state championship in 2014 and won 2015-16 Gatorade Player of the Year honors. That led her to the University of Colorado, where she remains the program’s all-time assists leader with 24. Flint went pro in 2020 and is a defensive midfielder for Racing Louisville FC.
Del Sol: Jalen Shaw
Despite missing two seasons due to COVID-19, this 5-foot-1-inch Dragons point guard graduated in 2023 as the school’s all-time leader in both total points and steals. She left her mark in the 2022-23 season by rising to the No. 5 spot in Nevada history for single-season steals, with 142 in just 24 games.
Desert Oasis: Alissa Perkins
This top Diamondback hasn’t even graduated yet. Known as one of the most dominant Southern Nevada softball players of the past decade, Perkins has done it all with a carbon-fiber prosthetic leg. Through last season, she had compiled a .525 career batting average, a 1.96 ERA in the pitchers circle and has never committed an error. But that’s not all. She also plays basketball and volleyball for Desert Oasis, and has set national Paralympic youth records in archery, long jump, shot put, discus, and javelin. She will be a senior when she returns to school this year.
Desert Pines: Alanna Jackson
The 2026 Jaguars grad won 2022-23 Class 4A Mountain League Player of the Year/MVP awards as a basketball forward/center in high school. She averaged 9.5 points and 14.5 rebounds per game that season, leading Desert Pines to a state runner-up finish. The 5-foot-9-inch standout originally committed to New Mexico Highlands University but later switched to CSN and is expected to play in the coming season.
Durango: Lindy La Rocque
Before Caitlin Clark’s stardom, there was this 2008 Durango grad who was sinking effortless threes when the Indiana Fever star was just a tot, setting a school career record of 2,678 career points. Those skills took her to Stanford, where she appeared in four NCAA Final Fours and helped the Cardinal end UConn’s record 90-game winning streak in 2010. With coaching aspirations, La Rocque did not pursue professional ball. After a couple of assistant jobs, she took the helm at UNLV in 2020 and already has become a three-time Mountain West Coach of the Year.
Eldorado: Sandra Douglass Morgan
The 1996 Sundevils grad competed in two years of track and four years of cheerleading, but her best days in athletics occurred later, and off the field. She did not play sports in her time at UNR, but did become a reputable attorney. She climbed her way to the top with multiple prestigious positions before becoming president of the Raiders in 2022. She is the first Black female president in the NFL.
Faith Lutheran: Olivia Stark
This left-footed soccer phenom just graduated in the spring, but she left a legacy behind. The Crusaders claimed three Class 5A championships, and Stark collected two 5A Offensive Player of the Year awards, three all-state first team honors and two Gatorade Player of the Year selections while recording 60 career goals and 49 assists. She plays midfielder/forward for UC Irvine.
Foothill: Roxanne Ritchie
Few can say they earned 11 varsity letters in their high school career, but this 2003 Falcons grad can. She excelled at volleyball, basketball and softball, but the left-handed outfielder ended up as a walk-on for the Utah State softball team. And keeping with her own tradition, she played more than one sport there. Known for her speed and agility, Ritchie played club rugby for Utah State.
Green Valley (tie): Kayla (Verner) Harper
ESPN/Fox motorsports analyst Jamie Little would be in the conversation had she actually played sports in high school. Harper did, and as the wife of baseball great Bryce Harper, she gets about the same amount of screen time. Some have forgotten that the 2011 Gators grad was a prolific soccer forward/midfielder in high school. The two-time Nevada High School Player of the Year winner still holds the state record for career assists (85). She went on to play for BYU and Ohio State and is remembered for her game-winning penalty kick in the 2012 NCAA Tournament to advance BYU to the Elite Eight.
Green Valley (tie): Crissy (Buck) Ziegler
The 1997 grad played softball, basketball and volleyball, earning nine letters in her time as a Gator. She moved on to UCLA from there, helping the Bruins win a national championship in 1999 while going 226-32-1 in her four seasons as a utility player there. Coaching stints at Oregon State and Cal State Bakersfield followed, and Buck now serves as leader of athletic development at St. Peter Lutheran School in Illinois.
Las Vegas: Shomari Harris
Yes, Toni Basil, singer of the 1982 hit song “Mickey,” wore her old Wildcats cheerleading uniform in the famous music video, but Harris had far more success on the court. The 2013 grad was a three-year captain for the team, putting up numbers that led her to play college ball at Collin College (Texas), Texas A&M-Commerce and Cal State East Bay. The 5-foot-5 sharpshooting guard went on to play international ball before getting into coaching. She was named an assistant coach at Seward County Community College (Kansas) last week after serving as a player development coach for Wichita State.
Legacy: Avione Allgood-Whetstone
The 2012 Longhorns grad is the only javelin thrower on the list, but she wouldn’t have much competition if there were others. Javelin is not an NIAA event, so she was on her own to figure things out. The arrangement was a success, as she threw 176 feet, 8 inches in 2011 to break the U.S. high school javelin record, She followed with gold at the 2011 Pan American Junior Games and was named to the USA Today All-USA Girls High School Track & Field Team in 2011. She dominated at the University of Oklahoma and Florida, narrowly missing an Olympics spot at the U.S. team trials in 2021.
Liberty: Rae Burrell
The 2018 grad was actually a basketball standout at Foothill before playing at Liberty in her senior year. The guard/forward, who was also a high jump specialist in track, finished her career with 2018 Las Vegas Review-Journal Best of Nevada Preps Female Athlete of the Year honors while earning an all-state first team selection. She followed with college ball at Tennessee, helping the Lady Vols go to the Sweet Sixteen in 2022, and went pro later that year. She currently plays for the Los Angeles Sparks, where she is averaging 13.5 points per game this season.
Mojave: Sequoia Holmes
This 2004 Rattlers grad had a successful high school career in track, volleyball and basketball. But basketball was the guard/forward’s specialty, as she scored 20.9 points per game as a senior and led the league in scoring in all three of her varsity seasons. Her next stop was UNLV, where she led the MWC in all-time steals and led the conference in scoring during her senior year. She played professionally with several leagues— including the WNBA — beginning in 2008 before returning to Mojave to take over coaching duties in 2024.
Palo Verde: Erica Sullivan
As another example of Palo Verde’s excellence in swimming, this 2018 grad raised eyebrows from a young age. After dominating in distance events while in high school, she withdrew from a commitment to USC to focus on international success. The plan worked out, as she won silver at the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2021. She wasn’t done there, as she next swam for the University of Texas, helping the Longhorns to three consecutive NCAA team runner-up finishes (2022, 2023, 2024) and three Big 12 team championships. She retired in 2024 as a seven-time All-American.
Rancho: Kerri Clark
The 1981 Rams grad was a dominant golfer in high school, winning the Nevada state championship in her junior year. She moved on to Weber State and won an NCAA individual championship before joining the LPGA, earning her tour card on her first attempt. In all, Clark played in LPGA, Ladies European Tour, Australian Tour, and Asian Tour events before becoming a Class A LPGA Teaching Professional in 2006. She was inducted into the Las Vegas Golf Hall of Fame in 2017.
Shadow Ridge: Whittnee Nihipali
The 2018 grad led the Mustangs girls volleyball team to a 2017 4A state title, winning Gatorade Nevada Player of the Year and Southern Nevada Player of the Year honors. She followed with two seasons at the University of Arizona and two at Utah Tech, earning Second Team All-WAC honors for the Trailblazers while leading the team in attacks (826), kills (281), and aces (24). Her crowning performance came as a senior, when she racked up a career-high 33 kills against UT Arlington to set a Utah Tech school record. She retired in 2022.
Sierra Vista: Sophia Omotola Omidiji
The 2015 grad scored a whopping 38 goals in her senior season to wrap up her high school career with a school-record 98. Representing Nigeria, the striker went on to play club and professional soccer at the international level. Though she technically remains a free agent, Omotola stepped away from soccer in 2018 and now focuses on fitness modeling, sports media, and working to mentor youth athletes.
Silverado: Amanda Bingson
Not many high school athletes can say they gained notoriety as a hammer thrower, but this 2008 grad is among the few who can. As a Skyhawk, she helped the Silverado track and field team claim four regional championships and two Nevada state championships. She moved from shot put and discus to the hammer in college, winning three All-America honors while at UNLV and setting a program and conference record mark of 233 feet. She advanced to the international level from there, representing the United States at the 2012 London Olympic Games and finished 28th overall. Her career highlight came in 2013, when she set an American record in the hammer with a 75.73-meter throw at the USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships.
Spring Valley: Aaliyah Gayles
This 2022 Grizzlies grad has endured more than her share of roadblocks, but she continues to soldier on as a 5-foot-9-inch basketball guard at Utah State. Coming out of high school, she was a five-star prospect and McDonald’s All-American after averaging 13.8 points, 4.9 rebounds, 3.5 steals, and 3.3 assists per game as a senior. But she was shot 10 times while attending a house party the following spring, a traumatic incident that led to an extensive recovery. USC still offered her a spot, and she finally returned to the court in 2023. She transferred to Utah State last year, averaging 12 points and four rebounds as a junior.
Sunrise Mountain: Nina Carpenter
The 2016 grad competed in basketball and track at Sunrise Mountain, winning two state titles in the high jump and averaging double-digit scoring on the court throughout high school. She pursued basketball in college, going on to play center at Holmes Community College (Mississippi), and later at Cal State Bakersfield and Morgan State (Maryland), where she was regarded as a top defensive player.
Tech: Cassidy Phelan
The 2021 Roadrunners grad took third place in the Nevada NIAA Class 3A state golf tourney as a freshman in 2017. She later played at Colorado Mesa University, where she earned Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference freshman of the year (2021-22) and All-RMAC honors four consecutive times. She left CMU with the school record for the lowest single-season scoring average (75.82 set in 2022-23) and is now pursuing a career in marketing.
Valley: Dorothy Chester-Kendrick
The 1984 grad was a standout in both basketball and softball, but basketball would dominate her future. Her success on the court as a forward resulted in a spot at Air Force, where she was named female athlete of the year. After eight years in the service, she returned to CCSD to teach and coach basketball for 22 seasons at Canyon Springs and Shadow Ridge. Kendrick received full military honors upon her death last year at age 58.
Western: Elly Reynada
The 2017 Warriors graduate was a standout soccer forward for all four years of her high school career. Her accomplishments included all-state and all-league selections, as well as all-conference offensive player of the year honors before she transitioned to playing as a part-time starting goalkeeper at UNLV. She left the game after her senior season in 2021.
Alternative education: Katie Grimes
Like Andre Agassi on the boys’ side, Grimes did not attend a traditional high school. Instead she studied at home and did her swim training with the Sandpipers of Nevada. Also an open-water swimmer, Grimes made it to the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 (fourth in the 800-meter freestyle) and won silver in the 400m individual medley at the 2024 Paris Olympics. As the No. 1 recruit of the 2024 class, she began her collegiate career at Virginia after completing her Olympic run. She is an All-American and multiple-time ACC champion, and will return this year as a junior in search of further success.
Charter schools: Sterling Dias
SLAM! Nevada has a rich history of producing top wrestlers, but no one on the girls’ side has outdone this 2022 grad. Despite sitting out the COVID-19 year, she compiled a 129-17 record in her three seasons with the Bulls and won state championships in each. She also competed at the national and international levels, winning four national championships, a World silver medal and a World bronze medal. The two-time All-American will complete her collegiate career as an Iowa Hawkeye this year as a redshirt senior.
